The mother of light cannot speak at all now.
Pieces of prophecy are crumbling all around me.
I shut my eyes, my fist tightening around the scroll until the ancient parchment crackles. My thoughts spin so violently I feel sick, hurled about like a boat in a storm. The torrent of what-ifs feels like knives, cutting me more deeply each time they swirl around me.
I’ve failed them. I’ve failed all of them, because I was weak. Because I was human. Because I loved …
Loved?
I open my eyes, my spinning thoughts crystalizing. I may have failed destiny, I may have chosen my heart, chosen North, over the prophecy a thousand years in the making. But there is one way I am not like the goddess who came before me.
I willnotrun away.
I cannot save the world, but I can save a few. Matias and Elkisa and Techeki and my acolytes and Hiret and the riverstriders and everyone who attended the Feast of the Dying … Inshara has them still, because I was forced to flee. My life, my purpose, was too important to risk in a confrontation. I could not fight then.
But now …
A trickle of mist condenses out of the air, gathering around me. It is no gentle, calm pool—it is as wild and hungry and full of fury as the most violent of storms. But it bends to me, snapping and tugging, like a pack of dogs trained to attack, chained to my will.
Now I have power—now I can defeat her.
Because now I have nothing left to lose.
The air thickens as I draw nearer the river, the humidity wrapping around me like a familiar blanket. I’ll make better time traveling by water than on foot, even upriver—I must see if Orrun’s boat is still there. Though it’s invisible now, I can feel the ambient mist in the air all around me. I could unbeach the boat with a thought, undoing what it took North and me both to do by hand.
The sun set a few hours ago, leaving the land in darkness that will hide me from any watchful eyes. By now, Inshara’s people may well have figured out that I made my escape from the temple city via the river.
I try not to think about North making his clumsy way through the wilderness in search of his people. The bindle cat must surely be with him—and though others might scoff at the idea of a single cat for protection, they don’t know about his uncanny ability to see the approach of danger.
Heart aching, mind conjuring a vision of warm brown eyes and a crooked smile, I’m almost upon the river’s edge before I register the bright orange glow through the trees.
I stop dead for a moment, confusion gripping me as it seems as though the river itself must be ablaze. Then I realize what is burning: the riverstrider’s boat.
Breaking into a run, I burst out of the trees just as the upper deck of the boat collapses with a dull crash, sending a spray of embers skyward. I reel back, raising my arms against the heat, searching for some way to quell the flames—but the boat is lost, pieces of it hissing as they fall into the mud.
Then the hairs on the back of my neck prickle and lift, the way they do when a mist-storm is gathering. I briefly consider summoning the mist in an effort to put out the flames, but the boat is already falling apart—and that isn’t the warning the mist conveyed.
I’m not alone.
I drop down into the shadow of a tree, listening. Whoever’s nearby could be responsible for setting the fire. Either way, if the last few days have taught me anything, it is to assume a stranger is an enemy until they prove otherwise.
I tighten my grip on my spearstaff. My straining eyes pick out a shadow where there should be none. The dark form of a cloaked figure leans against a tree not far away. With painstaking slowness, I creep closer, keeping to the dark spaces beneath the trees until I’m only a few paces away from the silhouette.
The quickest and safest way to render them harmless is to stab out from the darkness with the point of the spear, aiming for the bulk of the body. They would be on the ground before they even knew they’d been hit.
But I’d risk the life of an innocent.
Daoman would tell me to strike. Still, when I gather myself to move, North’s voice is the one I listen to.
With a grunt of effort and a lunge, I sweep my staff sideways into the legs of the shadow, knocking them to the ground and eliciting a cry of surprise. I step up to level the point of my spear at their throat.
The shifting, flickering light of the fire distorts the scene, but I can make out the shape of the person gasping for breath and gazing dazedly up at me. As I look down, my eyes adjust to the quivering light, and I begin to pick out features.
The shadow turns out to be a man—a boy, really, his features still slim and delicate, his eyes bright and large. His hair is cropped so short it must have been shaved recently, and the paleness of his skin stands out against the mud around him. Against his fair cheeks, I can see a dark trio of painted lines, an affect I recognize from the people flanking Inshara when she broke into my temple to drive me out and murder my high priest.
Fear rises like bile in my throat, choking and burning me, numbing my tongue. The barrage of questions I had prepared vanish like illusory smoke.
A cultist.
